As directors of Friendship Circle in Charlotte, North Carolina, an organization supporting children with special needs, Rabbi Bentzion and Rochel Groner realized that employment opportunities for young adults with special needs were severely limited following graduation from high school.
The Groners, who are Chabad Shluchim, had been exploring potential solutions when they were approached by Charlie and Caren Gale, who had become frustrated in their effort to find employment for their 18-year-old son on the Autism Spectrum. After extensive research and much joint effort ZABS Place opened in 2014.
Zabs Place is a thrift store just outside Charlotte that employs adults with disabilities and aims to help them achieve their professional dreams through job coaching and finding meaning in their community.
Here is how the Today Show in NBC reported about them:
Go Rochel go!!!
What a terrific way to give and receive, all at the same time. Kudos to the Groners and to the Gale famitfor instituting it.
This is amazing! You are changing these people’s lives! God bless you!!
Very impressed with the idea! Thank you for sharing!
This is amazing! I am so impressed with how these people saw a lack and then went and did something fantastic to fill in that lack.
Keep up the great work!!